phil winslade

A more appropriate name for DC Comics' Convergence event, at least the miniseries that will accompany the main series for two months next spring, may be "Nostalgia Trip."

DC has been rolling out titles and creative teams for the 40 planned series week by week. The first batch focused on the publisher's pre-New 52 continuity. The second focused on the 1990s (including WildStorm), and the third seemed to center on the 1980s.

The fourth and final group of miniseries, which DC announced Tuesday, covers a much wider time period: All of DC's pre-Crisis On Infinite Earths continuity. And there's another twist: They all take place on defined and listed alternate Earths which existed before the company's last line-wide reboot in the 1980s.

Who doesn't love a good postmodern murder mystery? Boring people, that's who. Dull, uninspired, abandoned buildings pretending to be human beings who prefer their detective stories to be streamlined and logical, with a series of clues that can be interpreted to lead to a definite answer, and no funny business with fragmentation, parallel narratives, or the sudden appearance of the author in their own story.

If, however, you're an interesting, exciting, attractive person with an undeniable elan, Vertigo's Bodies might be more your style. Written by Si Spencer and drawn by a team of four artists, Bodies takes place in four distinct time periods ranging from the 19th century to the far future, where four detectives investigate four identical murder cases. Not just identical in that it's the same M.O., with the exact same injuries and found in the exact same spot throughout time; identical in that, over a span of 160 years, it's the same body.

This week, Chris and Matt gush about the amazing work Matt Fraction, David Aja, Matt Hollingsworth and Chris Eliopoulos do on the highly experimental and enjoyable Hawkeye #19. Then they talk about the Brian Buccellato-written Detective Comics Annual #3, which features collaborations with a whole slew of artists. Speaking of big groups of artists, they then pivot to talking about the new Vertigo series Bodies, which is written by Si Spencer and has art by Meghan Hetrick, Dean Ormston, Tula Lotay and Phil Winslade.

DC can't get enough of the number 52; Vertigo is really into the number four lately. Not only is the upcoming quarterly anthology CMYK based on four colors, another new series, titled Bodies, will feature four different detectives solving a murder mystery that runs through four different points in London history: 1890, 1940, 2014, and 2050.

The Si Spencer-written, eight-issue series will also feature four different artists: Dean Ormston, Phil Winslade, Meghan Hetrick and Tula Lotay. They'll each be covering a different time period. The series kicks off this summer.

A nominee for this year's Eisner Award for Best Anthology (and last year's winner), Dark Horse Presents has been one of ComicsAlliance's favorite titles since it was relaunched in 2011 to continue the classic and influential series' tradition of showcasing emerging talent alongside some of the best established writers, artists and cartoonists mainstream and underground comics has to offer. Each issue comes with quirky, undiluted excursions into the minds of uniquely talented creators, usually with immersive new serials or idiosyncratic short stories but also in the form of recurring, cult favorite characters and properties for which Dark Horse has served as caretaker for many years.

We make a regular practice at ComicsAlliance of spotlighting particular artists or specific bodies of work, but because cartoonists, illustrators and their fans share countless numbers of great images on sites like Flickr, Tumblr, DeviantArt and seemingly infinite art blogs that we've created Best Art Ever (This Week), a weekly depository for just some of the pieces of especially compelling artwork that we come across in our regular travels across the Web. Some of it's new, some of it's old, some of it's created by working p

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